Revisiting Twitter’s preseason Championship 4 predictions

By

Steve LuvenderNASCAR.com
November 14, 2018 at 9:11 am

A long, long time ago — February, to be exact, before the “Big Three” became a thing and everybody joked about how Chase Elliott was never going to win a race — we challenged NASCAR Twitterfolk to make a bold prediction: Who’s going to make the 2018 Championship 4?

Really, we did this because we wanted to keep people honest. We didn’t want anyone in Miami gloating, “I called the Championship 4 before the season even started.” Accountability, folks.

Following a thriller Sunday at ISM Raceway, the field is set for the winner-take-all season finale in Miami. The four drivers competing for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup next week are Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, and Martin Truex Jr.

This brings us back to our pre-season Twitter question, of course: How’d everybody on Twitter do? Who can we laud in this public forum for their picking skills? Who called the Championship 4 back before Austin Dillon took the season-opening checkered flag in the Daytona 500 — a day that feels like forever ago?

Nobody’s Very Good at This

Well, in a startling turn of events, it turns out nobody predicted the Championship 4. Not one person had the foresight to name Busch, Harvick, Logano, and Truex Jr. Round of applause, everybody.

A few came close, however, picking the “Big Three” (but missing the fourth pick). Our “close enough” award winners:

Time capsule, to be unearthed November 12, 2018:

Which four drivers will be the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4?

Let’s see who’s closest at the end of the year. (And, more importantly, let’s see who’s the most wrong so everyone can make fun of you later.)

It sort of makes sense why nobody picked all four championship contenders. Joey Logano completely missed the playoffs in 2017. Very few expected him to rebound not only into the playoffs, but all the way to the Championship 4.

In fact, only one person who correctly picked three of four contenders named Joey Logano as one of them. Way to go, @CameronBak923.

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